DENVER – Fifteen seasons after Tony Gwynn batted .394 for a Padres team that could barely tie its shoes, Adrian Gonzalez has amassed 34 home runs and 111 RBI for a Padres team that's even worse.

“Just think how bad we'd be without him,” pitcher Shawn Estes said last night after he and Charlie Haeger gave up 10 runs in a 10-3 defeat to the Rockies at Coors Field.

Beauty and the Beast, the Padres' sequel, has played out often this season, the beast being all the ugly in the team's 58-94 record.

Beautiful is how baseball people describe Gonzalez's swing when it's well-tuned, as when the left-hander hit Ubaldo Jimenez's 97-mph fastball nearly 440 feet for a 2-0 lead in the first inning.

Before meeting the pitch, Gonzalez drew back his right leg and bat a tad sooner than usual, then smoothly directed the bat's barrel downward. Gonzalez finished in balance as the ball soared toward the left-center seats.

He never rushed, though the 3-1 pitch rushed toward him.

“You've got to look for the ball down because it's easier to hit,” Gonzalez said. “You've got to try to let the ball come and not try to speed up just because the pitch is fast. The pitch was down, so you let the head of the bat drop, and try to finish my swing.”

Sounds easy. “It's really hard,” he added.

The bigger challenge, one that taxed Gwynn while starring for last-place clubs in 1994 and other years, is to remain upbeat despite the constant losing. Gonzalez admitted last night that he got discouraged a month ago, when his optimism gave way to reality.

“I realized we weren't going to make the playoffs and that we didn't have a chance, and it was tough,” said Gonzalez, who as a boy in Bonita rooted for Gwynn and the Padres. “That was my first year of us not being in the playoff race. We went to the playoffs in 2006 and we were in it on the last day last year. We had something to play for every day.”

Gonzalez said he drifted mentally as a hitter, losing discipline during at-bats in July and August.

“I was swinging at five or six bad pitches a game,” he said. “If you look at the month of August, I was chasing so many pitches. Pitches up. Pitches down. Sliders. Change-ups.”

He said his goal is to cut down the chasing to one “bad” pitch per game. Again, easier said than done, given that all opponents resolve to force a Padres hitter other than Gonzalez to beat them.

“I had a tough month of August,” Gonzalez said, “but it's getting close to the end and I'm trying to keep my thoughts positive and be a professional.”

He said it's important that he set a good example for the young players. Teammate Brian Giles, in turn, inspires him.

“He grinds it out every day, has quality at-bats every day,” Gonzalez said.

As this kooky Padres season nears a merciful end, the kookiness still shows no sign of abating. The Padres even have developed an injury du jour: the strain of the right triceps.